National Republican Association

The National Republican Association (ANR) was a liberal and republican party of the French Third Republic which existed from 1888 to 1903. The party was founded by Jules Ferry and consisted of the middle bourgeoisie, industrialists, and scholars who were opposed to the populist general Georges Boulanger's rise to power. The ANR portrayed itself as leftist, but it was secretly a conservative group opposing the income tax and strikes. In 1889, Boulanger's fall from power due to his loss of Radical support and his failed coup led to the ANR and other Opportunists winning the election in a landslide, winning 61.2% of the popular vote and 354 seats to Boulanger and the Droite Nationaliste's 36.7% and 212 seats. In 1893, after the Radicals were harmed by a corruption scandal, the ANR won that year's election in a landslide as well, but the Dreyfus affair of 1893-1906 caused the ANR to split into two sizable factions: in 1901, the liberal Dreyfusards under Pierre Waldeck-Rousseau left to form the Democratic Republican Alliance, while the conservative and anti-Dreyfusard (albeit not openly anti-Semitic) faction of Raymond Poincare and Jules Meline went on to form the right-wing Republican Federation in 1903.